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nnted from The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
Science, Philadelphia, July, 1917. 
Publication No. 1130. 



THE WORLD CONFLICT IN ITS RELATION TO 
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

By Walter Lippmann, 

I,- 

Editorial Staff, New Republic, New York. 
I 

The way in which President Wilson directed America's entrance 
into the war has had a mighty effect on the pubHc opinion of the 
world. Many of those who are disappointed or pleased say they 
are surprised. They would not be surprised had they made it their 
business this last year to understand the pohcy of their government. 

In May, 1916, the President made a speech which will be counted 
among the two or three decisive utterances of American foreign 
poUcy. The Sussex pledge had just been extracted from the Ger- 
man government, and on the surface American neutrahty seemed 
assured. The speech was an announcement that American isola- 
tion was ended, and that we were prepared to join a League of Peace. 
This was the foundation of all that followed, and it was intended to 
make clear to the world that America would not abandon its tradi- 
tional pohcy for imperialistic adventure, that if America had to fight 
it would fight for the peace and order of the world. It was a great 
portent in human history, but it was overshadowed at the time by 
the opening of the presidential campaign. 

Through the summer the President insisted again and again 
that the time had come when America must assume its share of re- 
sponsibility for a better organization of mankind. In the early 
autumn very startling news came from Germany. It was most 
confusing because it promised peace maneuvers, hinted at a separate 
arrangement with the Russian court party, and at the resumption 
of unlimited submarine warfare. The months from November to 
February were to tell the story. Never was the situation more per- 
plexing. The prestige of the Allies was at low ebb, there was 
treachery in Russia, and, as Mr. Lansing said, America was on the 
verge of war. We were not only on the verge of war, but on the verge 
of a bewildering war which would not command the whole-hearted 
support of the American people. 

1 



2 The Annals of the American Academy 

With the election past, and a continuity of administration as- 
sured, it became President Wilson's task to make some bold move 
which would clarify the muddle. While he was preparing this move, 
the German chancellor made his high-hand.ed proposal for a blind 
conference. That it would be rejected was obvious. That the re- 
jection would be followed by the submarine war was certain. The 
danger was that America would be drawn into the war at the mo- 
ment when Germany appeared to be offering the peace for which the 
bulk of American people hoped. We know now that the peace Ger- 
many was prepared to make last December was the peace of a con- 
queror. But at the time Germany could pose as a nation which had 
been denied a chance to end the war. It was necessary, therefore, 
to test the sincerity of Germany by asking publicly for a statement 
of terms. The President's circular note to the powers was issued. 
This note stated more precisely than ever before that America was 
ready to help guarantee the peace, and at the same time it gave all 
the belligerents a chance to show that the}^ were fighting for terms 
which could be justified to American opinion. The note was very 
much misunderstood at first because the President had said that, 
since both sides claimed to be fighting for the same things, neither 
could well refuse to define the terms. The misunderstanding soon 
passed away when the replies came. Germany brushed the Presi- 
dent aside, and showed that she wanted a peace by intrigue. The 
Allies produced a document which contained a number of formulae 
so cleverly worded that they might be stretched to cover the wildest 
demands of the extremists or contracted to a moderate and just 
settlement. Above all the Allies assented to the League of Peace 
which Germany had dismissed as irrelevant. 

The war was certain to go on with America drawn in. On 
January 22, after submarine warfare had been decided upon but 
before it had been proclaimed, the President made his address to the 
Senate. It was an international program for democracy. It was 
also a last appeal to German liberals to avert a catastrophe. They 
did not avert it, and on February 1 Germany attacked the whole neu- 
tral world. That America would not submit was assured. The ques- 
tion that remained to be decided was the extent of our participation 
in the war. Should it be merely defensive on the high seas, or 
should it-be a separate war? The real source of confusion was the 
treacherous and despotic Russian government. By no twist of 






^ 






1'he World Conflict and American Democracy 3 

language could a partnership with that government be made con- 
sistent with the principles laid down by the President in his address 
to the Senate. 

The Russian Revqlution ended that perplexity and we could 
enter the war with a clear conscience and a whole heart. When 
Russia became a Republic and the American Republic became an 
enemy, the German empire was isolated before mankind as the final 
refuge of autocracy. The principle of its life is destructive of the 
peace of the world. How destructive that principle is, the ever- 
widening circle of the war has disclosed. 

II 

Our task is to define that danger so that our immense sacrifices 
shall serve to end it. I cannot do that for myself without turning 
to the origins of the war in order to trace the logical steps by which 
the pursuit of a German victory has enlisted the enmity of the world. 

We read statements by Germans that there was a conspiracy 
against their national development, that they found themselves en- 
circled by enemies, that Russia, using Serbia as an instrument, was 
trying to destroy Austria, and that the Entente had already detached 
Italy. Supposing that all this were true, it would remain an extraor- 
dinary thing that the Entente had succeeded in encircling Ger- 
many. Had that empire been a good neighbor in Europe, by what 
miracle could the old hostility between England and France and 
Russia have been wiped out so quickly? But there is positive evi- 
dence that no such conspiracy existed. 

Germany's place in the sun is Asia Minor. By the Anglo- 
German agreement of June, 1914, recently published, a satisfactory 
arrangement had been reached about the economic exploitation of 
the Turkish empire. Professor Rohrbach has acknowledged that 
Germany was given concessions "which exceeded all expectations," 
and on December 2, 1914, when the war was five months old, von 
Bethmann-HoUweg declared in the Reichstag that "this under- 
standing was to lessen every possible political friction. " The place 
in the sun had been secured by negotiation. 

But the road to that place lay through Austria-Hungary and 
the Balkans. It was this highway which Germany determined to 
control absolutely; and the chief obstacle on that highway was 
Serbia backed by Russia. Into the complexities of that Balkan 



4 The Annals of the American Academy 

intrigue I am not competent to enter. We need, however, do no 
more than follow Lord Grey in the belief that Austria had a genuine 
grievance against Serbia, a far greater one certainly than the United 
States has ever had against Mexico. But Britain had no stake in 
the Austro-Serbian quarrel itself. 

It had an interest in the method which the central powers took 
of settling the quarrel. When Germany declared that Europe could 
not be consulted, that Austria must be allowed to crush Serbia with- 
out reference to the concert of Europe, Germany proclaimed herself 
an enemy of international order. She preferred a war which in- 
volved all of Europe to any admission of the fact that a cooperative 
Europe existed. It was an assertion of unlimited national sover- 
eignty which Europe could not tolerate. 

This brought Russia and France into the field. Instantly Ger- 
many acted on the same doctrine of unlimited national sovereignty 
by striking at France through Belgium. Had Belgium been merely 
a small neutral nation the crime would still have been one of the 
worst in the history of the modern world. The fact that Belgium 
was an internationalized state has made the invasion the master 
tragedy of the war. For Belgium represented what progress the 
world had made towards cooperation. If it could not survive then 
no internationalism was possible. That is why through these years 
of horror upon horror, the Belgian horror is the fiercest of all. The 
burning, the shooting, the starving, and the robbing of small and 
inoffensive nations is tragic enough. But the German crime in Bel- 
gium is greater than the sum of Belgium's misery. It is a crime 
against the bases of faith at which the world must build or perish. 

The invasion of Belgium instantly brought the five British 
democracies into the war. I think this is the accurate way to state 
the fact. Had the war remained a Balkan war with France engaged 
merely because of her treaty with Russia, had the fighting been con- 
fined to the Franco-German frontier, the British empire might have 
come into the war to save the balance of power and to fulfill the naval 
agreements with France but the conflict would probably never have 
become a people's war in all the free nations of the empire. What- 
ever justice there may have been in Austria's original quarrel with 
Serbia and Russia was overwhelmed by the exhibition of national 
lawlessness in Belgium. 

This led to the third great phase of the war, the phase which 



The World Conflict and American Democracy 5 

concerned America most immediately. The Allies directed by Great 
Britain employed sea power to the utmost. They barred every road 
to Germany, and undoubtedly violated many commercial rights of 
neutrals. What America would do about this became of decisive 
importance. If it chose to uphold the rights it claimed, it would aid 
Germany and cripple the Allies. If it refused to do more than ne- 
gotiate with the Allies, it had, whatever the technicalities of the case 
might be, thrown its great weight against Germany. It had earned 
the enmity of the German government, an enmity which broke out 
into intrigue and conspiracy on American soil. Somewhere in the 
winter of 1915, America was forced to choose between a policy which 
helped Germany and one which helped the Alhes. We were con- 
fronted with a situation in which we had to choose between opening 
a road to Germany and making an enemy of Germany. With the 
proclamation of submarine warfare in 1915 we were told that either 
we must aid Germany by crippling sea power or be treated as a hos- 
tile nation. The German policy was very simple: British mastery 
of the seas must be broken. It could be broken by an American at- 
tack from the rear or by the German submarine. If America re- 
fused to attack from the rear, America was to be counted as an 
enemy. It was a case of he who is not for me is against me. 

To such an alternative there was but one answer for a free people 
to make. To become the ally of the conqueror of Belgium against 
France and the British democracies was utterly out of the question. 
Our choice was made and the supreme question of American policy 
became: how far will Germany carry the war against us and how 
hard shall we strike back? That we were aligned on the side of Ger- 
many's enemies no candid man, I think, can deny. The effect of 
this alignment was to make sea power absolute. For mastery of 
the seas is no longer the possession of any one nation. The suprem- 
acy of the British navy in this war rests on international consent, on 
the consent of her allies and of the neutrals. Without that consent 
the blockade of Germany could not exist, and the decision of America 
not to resist alhed sea power was the final blow which cut off Ger- 
many from the world. It happened gradually, without spectacular 
announcement, but history, I think, will call it one of the decisive 
events of the war. 

The effect was to deny Germany access to the resources of the 
neutral world, and to open these resources to the Allies. Poetic 



6 The Annals of the American Academy 

justice never devised a more perfect retribution. The nation which 
had struck down a neutral to gain a mihtary advantage found the 
neutral world a partner of its enemies. 

That partnership between the neutral world and Germany's 
enemies rested on merchant shipping. This suggested a new theory 
of warfare to the German government. It decided that since every 
ship afloat fed the resources of its enemies, it might be a good idea to 
sink every ship afloat. It decided that since all the highways of the 
world were the communications of the AUies, those communications 
should be cut. It decided that if enough ships were destroyed, it 
didn't matter what ships or whose ships, England and France would 
have to surrender and make a peace on the basis of Germany's vic- 
tories in Europe. 

Therefore, on the 31st of January, 1917, Germany abolished 
neutrality in the world. The policy which began by denying that a 
quarrel in the Balkans could be referred to Europe, went on to de- 
stroy the internationalized state of Belgium, culminated in indis- 
criminate attack upon the merchant shipping of all nations. The 
doctrine of exclusive nationalism had moved through these three 
dramatic phases until those who held it were at war with mankind. 

Ill 

The terrible logic of Germany's poUcy had a stupendous result. 
By striking at the bases of all international order, Germany con- 
vinced even the most isolated of neutrals that order must be pre- 
served by common effort. By denying that a society of nations 
exists, a society of nations has been forced into existence. The very 
thing Germany challenged Germany has established. Before 1914 
only a handful of visionaries dared to hope for some kind of federa- 
tion. The orthodox view was that each nation had a destiny of its 
own, spheres of influence of its own, and that it was somehow beneath 
the dignity of a great state to discuss its so-called vital interests with 
other governments. It was a world almost without common aspira- 
tion, with few effective common ideals. Europe was spht into shift- 
ing alliances, democracies and autocracies jumbled together. Amer- 
ica lay apart with a budding imperiahsm of its own. China was 
marked as the helpless victim of exploitation. That old political 
system was one in which the German view was by no means alto- 



The World Conflict and American Democracy 7 

gether disreputable. Internationalism was half-hearted and gener- 
ally regarded somewhat cynically. 

What Germany did was to demonstrate ad nausearn the doctrine 
of competitive nationalism. Other nations had apphed it here and 
there cautiously and timidly. No other nation in our time had ever 
applied it with absolute logic, with absolute preparation, and with 
absolute disregard of the consequences. Other nations had dallied 
with it, compromised about it, muddled along with it. But Ger- 
many followed through, and Germany taught the world just where 
the doctrine leads. 

Out of the necessities of defense men against it have gradually 
formulated the ideals of a cooperative nationalism. From all parts 
of the world there has been a movement of ideals working slowly 
towards one end, towards a higher degree of spiritual unanimity 
than has ever been known before. China and India have been 
stirred out of their dependence. The American Repubhc has aban- 
doned its isolation. Russia has become something like a Republic. 
The British empire is moving towards closer federation. The 
Grand Alliance called into existence by the German aggression is 
now something more than a military coalition. Common ideals are 
working through it — ideals of local autonomy and joint action. 
Men are crying that they must be free and that they must be united. 
They have learned that they cannot be free unless they cooperate, 
that they cannot cooperate unless they are free. 

I do not wish to underestimate the forces of reaction in our coun- 
try or in the other nations of the Alliance. There are politicians and 
commercial groups who see in this whole thing nothing but oppor- 
tunity to secure concessions, manipulate tariffs and extend the 
bureaucracies. We shall know how to deal with them. Forces 
have been let loose which they can no longer control, and out of this 
immense horror ideas have arisen to possess men's souls. There 
are times when a prudent statesman must build on a contracted view 
of human nature. But there are times when new sources of energy 
are tapped, when the impossible becomes possible, when events out- 
run our calculations. This may be such a time. The Alliance to 
which we belong has suddenly grown hot with the new democracy 
of Russia and the new internationalism of America. It has had an 
access of spiritual force which opens a new prospect in the pohcies 
of the world. We can dare to hope for things which we never dared 



8 The Annals of the American Academy 

to hope for in the past. In fact if those forces are not to grow cold 
and frittered they must be turned to a great end and offered a great 
hope. 

IV 

That great end and that great hope is nothing less than the 
Federation of the World. I know it sounds a little old-fashioned to 
use that phrase because we have abused it so long in empty rhetoric. 
But no other idea is big enough to describe the Alliance. It is no 
longer an offensive-defensive military agreement among diplomats. 
That is how it started to be sure. But it has grown, and is growing, 
into a union of peoples determined to end forever that intriguing, 
adventurous nationalism which has torn the world for three cen- 
turies. Good democrats have always believed that the common 
interests of men were greater than their special interests, that ruling 
classes can be enemies, but that the nations must be partners. Well, 
this war is being fought by nations. It is the nations who were called 
to arms, and it is the force of nations that is now stirring the world 
to its foundations. 

The war is dissolving into a stupendous revolution. A few 
months ago we still argued about the Bagdad corridor, strategic 
frontiers, colonies. Those were the stakes of the diplomat's war. 
The whole perspective is changed today by the revolution in Russia 
and the intervention of America. The scale of values is transformed, 
for the democracies are unloosed. Those democracies have nothing 
to gain and everything to lose by the old competitive nationalism, 
the old apparatus of diplomacy, with its criminal rivalries in the 
backward places of the earth. The democracies, if they are to be 
safe, must cooperate. For the old rivalries mean friction and arma- 
ment and a distortion of all the hopes of free government. They 
mean that nations are organized to exploit each other and to exploit 
themselves. That is the hfe of what we call autocracy. It estab- 
lishes its power at home by pointing to enemies abroad. It fights 
its enemies abroad by dragooning the population at home. 

That is why practically the whole world is at war with the great- 
est of the autocracies. That is why the whole world is turning so 
passionately towards democracy as the only principle on which peace 
can be secured. Many have feared, I know, that the war against 
Prussian militarism would result the other way, that instead of 




The World Conflict and American Democracy 9 

liberalizing Prussia the outcome would be a prussianization of the 
democracies. That would be the outcome if Prusso-Germany won. 
That would be the result of a German victory. And that is why we 
who are the most peaceful of democracies are at war. The success 
of the submarine would give Germany victory. It was and is her 
one great chance. To have stood aside when Germany made this 
terrible bid for victory would have been to betray the hope of free 
government and international union. 



There are two ways now in which peace can be made. The 
first is by poUtical revolution in Germany and Austria-Hungary. 
It is not for us to define the nature of that revolution. We cannot 
dictate liberty to the German people. It is for them to decide what 
political institutions they will adopt, but if peace is to come through 
revolution we shall know that it has come when new voices are heard 
in Germany, new policies are proclaimed, when there is good evidence 
that there has, indeed, been a new orientation. If that is done the 
war can be ended by negotiation. 

The other path to peace is by the definite defeat of every item 
in the program of aggression. This will mean, at a minimum, a 
demonstration on the field that the German army is not invincible; 
a renunciation by Germany of all the territory she has conquered ; a 
special compensation to Belgium; and an acknowledgment of the 
fallacy of exclusive nationalism by an application for membership 
in the League of Nations. 

Frontier questions, colonial questions, are now entirely sec- 
ondary, and bej^ond this minimum program the United States has 
no direct interest in the territorial settlement. The objects for 
which we are at war will be attained if- we can defeat absolutely the 
foreign policy of the present German government. For a ruling 
caste which has been humiliated abroad has lost its glamor at home. 
So we are at war to defeat the German government in the outer 
world, to destroy its prestige, to deny its conquests, and to throw it 
back at last into the arms of the German people marked and dis- 
credited as the author of their miseries. It is for them to make the 
final settlement with it. 

If it is our privilege to exert the power which turns the scale, it 
is our duty to see that the end justifies the means. We can win 



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10 



The Annals of the American Academy 



nothing from this war unless it culminates in a union of liberal 
peoples pledged to cooperate in the settlement of all outstanding 
questions, sworn to turn against the aggressor, determined to erect 
a larger and more modern system of international law upon a federa- 
tion of the world. That is what we are fighting for, at this moment, 
on the ocean, in the shipyard and in the factory, later perhaps in 
France and Belgium, ultimately at the council of peace. 

If we are strong enough and wise enough to win this victory, to 
reject all the poison of hatred abroad and intolerance at home, we 
shall have made a nation to which free men will turn with love and 
gratitude. For ourselves we shall stand committed as never before 
to the realization of democracy in America. We who have gone to 
war to insure democracy in the world will have raised an aspiration 
here that will not end with the overthrow of the Prussian autocracy. 
We shall turn with fresh interests to our own tj^annies — to our 
Colorado mines, our autocratic steel industries, our sweatshops and 
our slums. We shall call that man un-American and no patriot who 
prates of liberty in Europe and resists it at home. A force is loose 
in America as well. Our own reactionaries will not assuage it with 
their Billy Sundays or control through lawyers and poUticians of the 
Old Guard. 



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